Using Foxit Reader? You might be vulnerable to network breaches

Cybersecurity and cyberattacks have become prominent topics lately. No matter how much you secure your network, vulnerabilities continue to emerge for different operating systems and applications. Most recently, security professionals have discovered two critical vulnerabilities in a third-party PDF reading application called Foxit Reader. These vulnerabilities allow hackers to execute arbitrarily-defined code on a user‘s computerwhen Foxit Reader is used without Safe Reading Mode enabled.

Using Foxit Reader? You might be vulnerable to network breaches

Two critical zero–day vulnerabilities

On August 17th,researchers Steven Seeley and Ariele Caltabiano discovered two vulnerabilities in Foxit Reader:

1. CVE-2017-10951, which acts as a command injection bug that resides in the app.launchURL function and executes strings provided by hackers. This vulnerability is mainly due to improper validation.

2. CVE-2017-10952, which exists in thesaveAs function and allows hackers to execute an arbitrarily–specified file on user computers. If the arbitrary file is modified, thenhackers can modify anythingon the end user’s computer. Steven Seeley has tested a proof of concept and published it on Zero Day Initiative.

3.Employ automatic patch management: Doing all the ground work manually is tiresome and complicated, especially sincethe number of vulnerabilities per application continually increases. Regularly updating your network is one of the best ways to remain free from zero-day vulnerabilities. Stay vigilant by employing patch management software like Desktop Central, which manages and deploys patches automatically.

How can ManageEngine help?

ManageEngine offers two types of support for these Foxit Reader vulnerabilities:

1.Patch deployment

Desktop Centralcan patch Windows, Mac, Linux, and over 250 third-party applications, all from a central location. We have released an update specifically for Foxit products to automatically enable Safe Reading Mode in Foxit PDF applications.

2.Registry configuration

With Desktop Central, you can deployspecific registry configurations, including the Foxit-specific keys below, to managed computers.